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A typical morning commute turned into straphangers’ worst nightmare after a packed subway train derailed in Queens Friday morning, injuring more than 19 people, cracking a rail and trapping about 1,000 people underground for hours.

Passengers described a harrowing scene as a loud screeching noise filled the tunnel just before the train came to an abrupt stop.

“The train was shaking and the cars in the front started tilting to the right,” said Melissa Delgado, 33. “I heard a pang and then a screech and then the train came to a halt.”

“It was a metal-on-metal sound and it was really loud,” said Razi Levin, 40, who was on his way to Manhattan.

The Brooklyn-bound F train ran into trouble near Broadway and 65th Street in Woodside.

Local service for the E and F trains was restored just after 5 p.m. as crews continued to feverishly remove debris from the tracks to allow rush-hour trains to pass through Queens.

Six of the eight cars derailed, causing smoke to fill the cars, inducing panic attacks and breathing issues for many of the straphangers.

“It was a horrifying experience,” said Tayyib Siddiqui, 31, who was in one of the first cars. “We were calming people down, telling them the worst already happened.”

Siddiqui said people on his car thought the train was going to catch fire as smoke billowed in. Power was cut to the area quickly, which caused the ventilation system to turn off, said Deputy Assistant Chief James Leonard.

“I thought, ‘This is it, we’re not going to survive,’” Siddiqui said he thought as the train lost control. “Thank God the sparks were the worst of it.”

Many passengers feared for their lives as they felt the subway cars sway back and forth.

“I thought I was going to die,” said Jemina Asamoah, 24, who was on her way to Brooklyn when the car she was in derailed. “Thank God I’m alive.”

Angela Forbes, 56, was one of the passengers taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center to treat a knee injury.

“I’m going to be fine, but the memories are going to take a while to get over,” she said.

Forbes is concerned about the medical bills that will stack up, as her insurance company informed her she’d be responsible for covering the ambulance ride.

“I think it’s ridiculous because it’s not my fault the train derailed. I don’t think I should be responsible for that, it’s the responsibility of the MTA.”

More than 100 firefighters worked together to pull people trapped underground through street grates and keep passengers calm, according to the MTA.

The stranded passengers sat on the sweltering subway cars with little information besides a promise from the loudspeaker that “help was on the way,” said Alassane Ngaide, who jumped on the train just after 10 a.m. at the 71st Street stop in Forest Hills.

The original plan was to have the passengers walk onto a rescue train that would transport them to the next stop, but Ngaide said officials scrapped that plan and started leading passengers on an odyssey to the streets.

“I walked down the little ladder they put up against the train,” he said. “They walked us down the tracks in the dark to another ladder.”

Once above ground, passengers felt disoriented and were confused about their whereabouts.

“It was bizarre,” said Frank Lomuscio, 53, who remained calm throughout the derailment and helped a woman who was having a panic attack in his car.

The pilot and last train cars did not derail, but the six cars in the middle did, FDNY Chief James Hall said at a press conference. The motorman and conductor are undergoing drug and alcohol tests.

An MTA worker at the scene said there was extensive damage underground, including 500 feet of damaged track, a broken rail and five bent crash columns.

At the time of the derailment, the train was on a long curve that leads to a downhill run that has a speed limit of 35 miles per hour. While it is still unclear whether excessive speed played a role in the derailment, some passengers said they felt like the train was moving faster than usual.

“It was definitely moving at a fast pace,” said Lomuscio, an attorney sitting in the second car.

Lomuscio said this was just “another Friday in the Big Apple” and said he gave up trying to get into work. He took the MTA up on their offer to honor commuter’s MetroCards for a handful of stations.

Despite all the chaos, Leonard said, he was impressed with the way passengers dealt with the emergency situation.

“Of course you have to give it up to the passengers,” he said at the press conference Friday afternoon. “They are New Yorkers, they kept their heads and did very well.”

Subway service in Queens on the E, F, M and R lines is suspended and the MTA recommends passengers use alternative routes and plan for major delays. Limited access to shuttle busses is also available for E and F train riders.